The Importance of Working ON Your Business:

7 Steps to Making Your Business Soar

Michael Gerber in The E-Myth Revisited, talks about the importance of working ON your business, as opposed to working IN your business. The working in is the delivering of your business’s services or products: providing the service, fulfilling the product, writing the proposal, giving the class, hiring the vendors, firing the contractors, sending the reports to the CPA, ordering supplies. Working on your business is far different; it’s looking at the big picture, designing the marketing strategy for the next year, creating new products, deciding to expand, defining new roles and descriptions, professional development.

Honestly, most entrepreneurs don’t spend enough time working ON the business. They’re much too caught up on the working IN side. Take a look at your to-do list; what’s on it? I bet it’s a lot of those Working IN tasks.

The problem is that Working ON the biz isn’t an item on your to-do list that you can cross off. (“Oh, thank goodness that working ON the business is done!”) It’s time you need to take away from the day-to-day to focus on the bigger picture and the deeper why of your business.

What you need to do:

1. Schedule regular Working ON the business time. Call it whatever you want. My favorite is Business Development or Business Dreaming Time.

2. Block off at least a half day a month. A full day is better.

3. Don’t mix IN with ON. In other words, you’re not going to efficiently go from ordering supplies, following up with prospective clients, and answering emails to big-picture planning and product development. Keep the activities separate. More concretely, that means when you have scheduled your business development time, do not have any other Working IN to-do’s for that day.

4. Have lovely blocks of free time in your regular schedule. While this isn’t Working ON your business, per se, it helps replenish your fuel, center and ground you, and let your mind dream. You’re priming the pump for your regularly scheduled business development time (see #1).

5. Have a way to record all your ideas, dreams, plans, and goals. Put them in one place. My favorite is a Sacred Space for Ideas document. That way, whenever you have a great idea, capture it, and then it’s there for your Business Development time.

6. Find one (I’m just asking for one) week a year where you don’t have any Working IN the business tasks. No email to return, no client work, no marketing, no phone appointments, no networking, no meetings, no social media. And use some of that week to think REALLY BIG for your business.

7. Delegate to a team (if you don’t have one, you need one… no arguments). Get rid of as much of the Working IN your business as you can so that you can bring some of those big dreams to fruition.

Imagine what your business could look like if you nurtured it with love, attention, and the business equivalent of vitamins and minerals.

It would soar.

About Dawn Goldberg Shuler

Dawn Shuler, Content Creator Extraordinaire, has been working with writing and the writing process all her life, from teaching English to working with companies to improve their communications and marketing materials.

Her soul purpose is to help people unleash their authentic selves into their daily lives through their words. She works with business owners, entrepreneurs, and authors to convey their deep message into compelling, potent words, whether it’s a website or a book, as well as to create powerful content to increase their credibility, visibility, and profitability. Visit www.WritingFromYourSoul.com to get a sense of the work she does as well as download her free Writing From Your Soul system.

Have a Great Year – Get The Basics Right and Succeed in 2013

It’s a new year and it’s that time of year when people set their resolutions and think about their goals. As a Business Coach it’s the time of year I remind my clients to go back to the basics. If you don’t cover the basics in your business and personal life then you may find you tend to drift.

Do these basics activities and you will have more control over your business and personal life and have a successful 2013.

1. Set SMART Goals

Goals are critical to success. Make sure you set your goals so you know what you are aiming for and when you will have to achieve it. Having clear goals allows you to put in place the actions needed to achieve your objectives. I recommend SMART goals:

Specific – get very clear about what you want and how it will feel, look, sound, smell etc.

Measurable – make sure the goals can be measured in a meaningful way. You have to measure it to know its achieved.

Achievable – make your goals challenging and achievable. They should push you but should be manageable.

Realistic – goals should always be realistic. Give yourself a something that will challenge you but that you can actually achieve.

Timed – know exactly when you will have to achieve your goal so you have a clear point to aim for.

Goals need to be clear, you must know when they are achieved, they must be a push but achievable and realistic and you must know when you will complete them.

2. Plan you diary for the year

Put all your fixed appointments, meetings you know about, main events and important dates into your diary for the whole year. All those carved in stone and can’t be moved events should go into you diary – for the whole year. This gives you a structure to start with.

3. Create a Weekly Plan

Create a weekly plan so you know what you are doing each week. Use a paper diary or a software diary but make sure you do create a plan that covers when you will be doing what over your week. Once you get the hang of that create a plan that covers 2 weeks or the whole month. This helps you plan ahead and gives you control of your actions and plans.

4. Use a To Do List

Start a To Do List that includes all the things you need to do for the week (personal and business) and put them in a priority order with Complete by Dates. If you tend to have a lot to do each day then break it down into daily To Do lists. Always focus on achieving the top 2 or 3 activities each day and you will make progress.

If you want to have a great year then make sure you cover all the basics in your business and your personal life. Ensure you have the direction and control that will set you on the path to an amazing year.

Have a happy and prosperous 2013!

Take care

Angus

About the author

My name is Angus MacLennan and I am a Coach delivering practical Business Support to Business Owners – specialising in small to medium size businesses.

My mission is to deliver a quality service to help every client develop their business and enable them to have the work/life balance they want.

Over the past 5 years I have had thousands of hours experience coaching and delivering workshops and have had my work incorporated in training programmes across four continents.

I am a Master Practitioner of NLP, a Master Results Coach, a Master Performance Consultant and have a Degree in Industrial Psychology and a Post Grad Dip in Personnel Management.

Previously on Coaching Confidence:

Affiliate Disclosure: From time to time some of the links on this site are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission.
Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will add value to my readers - if I can't see the value it doesn't matter what commission is offered it simply won't be listed.